Tag Archives: intense emotions

The Power of Waiting
Waiting to cool
No matter the child, no matter the situation, waiting for emotions to cool and for the situation to pass, can make all the difference in your ability to connect.

The following is a story from the mom of an Aspergers child:

As we drove to school one Monday morning, out of the blue my ten year old son said, “Mum, I want to say sorry for what happened on Thursday.”

My son is an ‘Aspiekid’ – he has traits of Aspergers, meaning he was born with a different kind of ‘wiring’ in the brain than most of us. One result of this is that he sometimes gets very distressed about things that others would consider insignificant or even ‘stupid’ to get upset about. He finds it harder than most people to move past these upsets, and when this happens I call it “getting stuck”.

‘What happened on Thursday’ was that he got “stuck” on a very small additional homework task, became very distressed and was emotionally and mentally unable to complete the task. Instead, after about an hour of distress,

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Humpty-Dumpty Parenting

Ever feel like you’re “walking on eggshells”? Does it seem like you are on constant alert for the next emotional “episode” to erupt? Sometimes it seems that if you look cross-eyed, your child will meltdown. Asking him to put on his jacket can seem like you’ve told him to jump off a cliff. “…for no reason at all,” might be a constant refrain in your family. Those eggshells are fragile; we step carefully to avoid any cracking, but it seems futile.

When you think about those eggshells, where do you imagine they come from? Not your child. After all, isn’t it she who you assume is running the show, controlling everyone in the family? Even if she melts down at the drop of a hat, she appears to have the power to get whatever she wants.

Face it, you are the one afraid of your child. You are the fragile one. Those eggshells broke away from you leaving you exposed and raw. You’re the one who has been worn thin, are at the end of your rope, feel like you

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